White House science advisor Holdren’s climate slide show at Kavli

While Obama seems to be a non-starter on climate, John Holdren is out stumping for climate change issues. For those who wonder what we are up against, watching this slideshow is enlightening. Comments on specific slides welcome. – Anthony

Via Eurekalert -Public Release: 28-Sep-2010
John P. Holdren addresses climate change, stressing need for international cooperation
At the 2010 Kavli Prize Science Forum, John Holdren, science advisor to US President Barack Obama, detailed the need and efforts to mitigate “global climate disruption.” The complete presentation, as well as a transcript of the address, is available at www.kavlifoundation.org.

TRANSCRIPT AND SLIDES (CLICK IMAGE BELOW FOR POWERPOINT PRESENTATION)

Ministers, Ambassador White, Mr. Kavli, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. My topic today, as is obvious from the screen, is climate change science and policy: what do we know, what should we do. And the secret bottom line is what is the Obama administration doing.

[SLIDE 1] I will get to that, but I want to make a few general observations first to put these remarks in context. I’ve given the broad focus of this symposium on international cooperation in science. President Obama was clear from the very outset — clear in his campaign, clear in his inaugural speech, clear on many, many occasions since – that he places a very high priority on science and technology, on the federal government’s stewardship of an investment in science and technology, of international cooperation in science and technology, and the reason he places such a high priority on these activities — and indeed on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education – is that he recognizes with crystal clarity the relevance of science and technology to the full array of great challenges that we face in the United States and indeed that most societies around the world face in common. Of the challenges of maintaining viable and growing economies; the challenge of delivering better health care outcomes to all citizens at affordable cost; the challenge of addressing the great problems at the intersection of energy and environment; above all, the challenge of climate change; the problems of maintaining peace and security in the world.

And the President recognizes as well, and this is particularly important I think in the context of the priorities of The Kavli Foundation – he recognizes the fundamental underpinnings that basic research provides the science and technology enterprise. That was particularly visible when the President spoke at the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009, the first annual meeting following his inauguration. He was the first president since John F. Kennedy to do that, and if you read that speech, which is still on the web I believe – both at the Academy web site and my friend Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences, is in the front row – and it’s also on the White House web site – what you will find is although the president was clear about the practical applications of science and technology to our great challenges as I’ve mentioned, he probably spent two thirds of that talk talking about the importance of basic science; the importance of fundamental research in science and technology to our national well-being; and the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education.

And he has been emphatic as well – emphatic with me in our initial conversations, emphatic ever since about my responsibility and my office’s responsibility – for fomenting increased international cooperation in science and technology, including in basic research. At the first cabinet meeting, the President said to his full cabinet, “I’m willing to accept and to listen to any sort of bad news that you’ve got to bring me, except the bad news that you’re not cooperating.” He said, “the challenges we face are too big, and our resources are too limited, for us to be able to afford noncooperation,” and that holds internationally as well as domestically among our agencies, among the private sector, the public sector, the philanthropic sector – it holds among nations. We cannot solve the great problems of our time alone – any of us – as individual nations. We need to solve them together, and science and technology pursued together are going to be immensely important elements of those solutions.

[SLIDE 2] My remarks today on climate change science and policy are in a sense an illustration of this wider phenomenon. I’m going to cover a lot of ground, I’m going to cover it quickly, I’m going to use a wordy PowerPoint because I’m happy then to make that available and anybody who finds the presentation too fast I’ll be happy to send them one and we’ll post it on the White House website as we usually do.